People come into your life for a reason, a season or a lifetime. When you figure out which one it is, you will know what to do for each person.

When someone is in your life for a REASON, it is usually to meet a need you have expressed. They have come to assist you through a difficulty; to provide you with guidance and support; to aid you physically, emotionally or spiritually. They may seem like a godsend, and they are. They are there for the reason you need them to be.

Then, without any wrongdoing on your part or at an inconvenient time, this person will say or do something to bring the relationship to an end. Sometimes they die. Sometimes they walk away. Sometimes they act up and force you to take a stand. What we must realize is that our need has been met, our desire fulfilled; their work is done. The prayer you sent up has been answered and now it is time to move on.

Some people come into your life for a SEASON, because your turn has come to share, grow or learn. They bring you an experience of peace or make you laugh. They may teach you something you have never done. They usually give you an unbelievable amount of joy. Believe it. It is real. But only for a season.

LIFETIME relationships teach you lifetime lessons; things you must build upon in order to have a solid emotional foundation. Your job is to accept the lesson, love the person, and put what you have learned to use in all other relationships and areas of your life. It is said that love is blind but friendship is clairvoyant.

This blog post made me sit back in my chair, chew the end of my already nibbled pencil and think about how the same can apply to fictional characters.

For noting: whilst writing this blog post and exploring this topic I actually made friends with one of my characters. I now understand why they came into my writing life and guess what – IT WAS NOT TO BUG THE HELL OUT OF ME as I previously thought.

I can put all the fictional characters I have created over the years into these three camps.

The Reason Character Camp

These characters have come to into my life for a reason and that is to help teach me things. Some have shown me that I need to make them real and tangible. Some have taught me that I need to give them a goal, a personality and some have shown me that I need to give them flaws as no one likes a goody two shoes. Some have turned up because they needed to show me that I was missing a trick with my story. They showed me where the trapdoor was and I opened it.

They then left my writing life because it was time for me to move on. I get this now.

The Season Character Camp

A few of my characters have come into my life for a season. They have given me a lot of joy and made me laugh. They have always showed up when I have needed to go back to loving being a writer and forget about publishing contracts, agents and future book sales. The characters from my Vampire Romance are in this camp. I loved writing their story and those evenings where I sat on my sofa and wrote my heart out because I was enjoying making my art will always be a fond memory. I will always be grateful to these characters for showing up when they did because I needed them for a season.

The Lifetime Character camp

This is a tough camp to get into. These fictional characters have taught me about persistence and resilience. They have taught me to believe in my writing and they have all guided me through some dark writing times. Even though some of these characters are now in my novel; Instructions For Falling In Love Again, they’re still with me. My character Roxy Collins is another who will never leave my head. She’s been with me since 2012 and I can’t see her leaving anytime soon.

If you are struggling with a character at the moment or you are wondering why the heck a certain character turned up in one of your stories – figure out the reason why they have come into your writing life.

On my Instagram stories two new characters have been created; the man from the Energy department and the lady from the Compliance dept who have found themselves working in the same office due to the lockdown. The lady from Compliance fancies the man from the Energy dept but he’s having none of it. One day I will confess to my husband that I’ve taken our joke marital role play onto Instagram. These characters are teaching me to smile through this lockdown. Check out the highlights so you can catch up – lol!

Have a great day x

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Lucy Mitchell lives in South Wales with her husband, her two teenage daughters, a giant labrador and a gang of unruly cats.
Lucy is the author of the award winning blog, BlondeWriteMore and was a Featured Romance Author on Wattpad.
When she’s not working or writing, Lucy can be found listening to audiobooks in a muddy field with her dog or sat outside her local pub in the sunshine enjoying a glass of wine.
Her debut novel Instructions Falling In Love Again is OUT now and already pulling in some fabulous reviews ❤️

I always like that piece about friendship because it reminds us that friendship isn’t just one thing. (Another one is the quote; Don’t make someone a priority in your life when they have only made you an option.) But seeing the characters we create in such a varied way is very insightful and creative, Lucy. Thanks and congrats.